All the troubleshooting is complete and the circuit is working well. They say experience is the best teacher… just too bad it comes too late. My dad has a related saying: “Experience is the best teacher, but it is a heck of a lot easier if it is

Sooner or later there comes a time… a time when you just got to plug it in and find out if it is going to work. Hence my title “Smoke ’em if you got ’em”. Success, no smoke came out. However,there has been more than one problem.

Almost everything in design is a compromise. Even something as simple as insulating wire connections that may be exposed to water. It always comes back to: “What are you trying to accomplish”, and even then often there are compromises. In the case of the

Last night I discussed the basics of laying out a circuit board. Tonight I will discuss some about how boards are constructed. The picture to the right is a fairly simple printed circuit board, PCB, that came as part of an electronic kit I recently bought. It will be

We are getting very close to where “the rubber meets the road” in our electronics work. We have worked in design a bunch, but now we need to start talking about skills. There is no make of the create unless we make it. The first and probably in many

The crane boom is almost complete! I put off doing the most difficult part, the head or nose of it until last. The reason this part is the most difficult is it narrows in both directions. The base or butt assembly did not get any narrower across the

Much progress has been made on the construction of the popsicle stick crane. At the last crane update I had built built the major part of the boom and some pulleys. Since that time I have figured out how to make the pulleys spin fairly

Details, details details. Details seem to be everything, but sometimes you don’t even know the details you need to know. Since constructing the popsicle test tower I have learned a lot. Unfortunately, there is not yet a lot to show because I am working slow and methodically to do